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Friday, September 28, 2012

Grabbed some scraps to make this scissors holder. I bought new paper scissors with my Jo-Ann's coupon. I believe I am a scissors hoarder. I can't think of a room in this house that doesn't contain at least one pair. I promise to toss the ones that make me mad (i.e., dull).

I've been so busy with work that I just found this photo of my pesto pizza I made last week. I roasted the mushrooms and grilled the pizzas on my gas grill. They turned out pretty good. I served salad on top of them. I was terrified to grill pizza dough, but it was a cinch. I might try the charcoal grill next time.

Someone bought more blue cheese. The buttermilk variety is elusive, but this Danish version is always available. Avocado, runny egg, and blue cheese on toast. Needs tomato, but I don't have any good ones at the moment. I'm hoping to get to the produce market this weekend. Those awesome summer tomatoes don't last forever.

Monday, September 24, 2012

There's a bounty of basil in my poolside garden. I mean loads of it. This is all from the half dead grocery store plant Inspector Gadget rescued from the trash. Apparently I didn't kill it all the way like I normally do. After a year or so, the bottom part of the plant is woody, so I'm not sure how much longer it will flourish. I really love having fresh herbs at my fingertips. Now if I could just learn to grow Italian parsley. I use a bunch of that every week.

I whipped up some pistachio pesto. Pistachios, loads of basil, garlic, Parmesan cheese, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and olive oil. It's killer. It made a ton of it, so I froze half. I'm going to try to make pizza dough today and make a pesto and cheese pizza on the grill for dinner.

Hollywood nannies a little three-year-old in between college and her part time job. She brought him over for the afternoon yesterday. We swam, watched TV, played race car crash, colored, color coded crayons, put raspberries on our fingertips, read books, played video games, napped (just him), and cooked and ate dinner. I forgot how busy toddlers are. Exhausting!

I kept looking around and finding stuff laying around that could harm him. My super sharp scissors, rotary cutter, swimming pool, stove top with boiling pots, expensive electronics, grumpy dachshund*, slippery wet tile, etc. I forgot how to child proof a house. He's a great little boy and didn't get in to anything. There was one bump into the sliding glass door incident, but he survived. I would have hated to send him home broken.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

My quilty friends and I headed off to beautiful Cocoa Beach a couple of weeks ago, but first we stopped for a little retail therapy. These two prints were on the sale rack.

Fat eighths were buy two get one free. We had a good time selecting ours. The Quilt Place had a huge selection.

We all bought scrap bags too. I walked away with two. They were stuffed with cute fabrics. Most of the chunks are fairly large. Nearly 2 lbs. of fabric in all. Quite the bargain. I can't wait to play with these.

The beach was nice. A little cloudy, but sometimes that's a good thing. We hit a few thrift stores on the way home. It couldn't have been a better day.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

There. I decorated for Halloween. Ha! I couldn't resist this little pie pumpkin. Isn't he adorable? I assume you can make a pie from it, right? I actually want to make pumpkin soup. I'll keep him around for a while then hack him up for cooking purposes.

I finally found these Artisan lettuces. Yum. I like fancy lettuces. Remember when it used to be just iceberg? I ate an entire head of iceberg lettuce once when I was a teenager. Just plain. I munched on it like an apple.

Found these big fresh raspberries too. I keep sneaking in the fridge to eat them. So much for using them for anything else.

And kale. I love kale. Have you ever made kale chips? I love those things.

I also tried my hand at homemade egg noodles. I thought they would be good with chicken paprikash. I'm not sure why I've never made chicken paprikash, but I will definitely make it again. Delicious.

I used to walk into my grandmothers house and see noodles drying like this. I heard a few "what's up with the noodles on the chairs?" from my crew. I like to keep them on their toes.

Dumped my orange scraps on the desk and decided to make a quilt block for our guild's BOM. The theme is Halloween and the block is quilter's choice.

A pumpkin emerged eventually. I'm sure I made the background piecing harder than it should have been, but that's how I roll. I'm off to Jo-Ann's big coupon sale where they put everything on sale and the coupons therefore do not work. : ) Whatever. It beats doing laundry.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

I grilled two red snappers over the weekend. The fish were super fresh according to my fishmonger. The cloudy eyes got "cooked" in my citrus marinade. Gross, huh? I've always wanted to grill a whole fish. Inspector Gadget was freaking out. He prefers his fish to come from the frozen food section in stick form.

The skin stuck to the grill grates terribly, but the flavor of the fish was really nice. We had these as an appetizer before Frogmore stew. No frogs were used for the stew. Now that would really freak out the Inspector. Frogmore stew involves shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes. I usually throw in onion and garlic too. Some people add crab legs or crayfish. It's a great one-pot meal for a casual crowd, which sums up all our dinner guests. And you can cook and serve it outside. On newspaper if you're classy like that. Easy clean up and only one pot to wash.

Nachos for dinner one night. I ran out of things to cook. I had one piece of leftover chicken, queso, and squeeze guacamole. Those red jalapenos are spicy. Another one plate dinner. I haven't been in a cooking mood lately.

Playing around with wonky half square triangles. These babies trimmed to 1.5 inches.

First there was some reason and order, then things got funky because I forgot where everything went. Watching movies and sewing is difficult for some.

And finally, a 6" x 7" little mug rug is done. I'm battling Hyperosmia (a heightened sense of smell) this week. It's awful. So awful I had to Google it. I've been in bleaching/cleaning mode to rid everything of odor. Odor that only I can detect. The dog is staying away from me. He thinks I'm going to Frebreze him.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Spaghetti and meatballs, what's not to love? Yeah, I fool the family with turkey meatballs, but that marinara sauce recipe is the bomb. And I didn't use whole wheat pasta like I normally do. Inspector Gadget was happy to have his "real noodles." This recipe for turkey meatballs is very good. I bake them at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes because I'm lazy, but they turn out juicy and flavorful. I think they're better than beef meatballs.

Playing in the scraps again. These quilt as you go potholders were fun and easy. I'm kind of in between big projects right now if you don't count the two million works in progress I love to ignore. Just call me no attention span Sally.

I got this book from Amazon yesterday (it was free at the time). It's a quick read, but I really enjoyed it. I hope the second book is out soon (and I remember to get it). Have a fun weekend.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The tequila lime chicken was okay. Meh. I doubt I'd waste tequila make it again. I do love grilled chicken thighs, but just a spicy rub or Asian inspired marinade is more my cup of tea. I made barbecued chicken a couple of weeks ago and forgot how good that is. Barbecue sauce gets really nice on the grill. Even the bottled stuff.

To go along with the chicken, I made a Mexican rice recipe that was long and drawn out. It was also just okay. Too bad it made such a gob of it. I think it needs more tomato.

At least the salad was good. It's hard to mess up a salad. You win some, you lose some. We sure didn't go hungry, but it wasn't the most memorable meal. As my maw always said, "fill up on salad if you don't care for the liver squash casserole."

I also made a little coloring tote for Hollywood's charge. The tutorial is right here. Note, it holds smaller size coloring books, but you can adjust it to hold just about anything. I think blank paper would be nice too. Encourages creativity or a quick game of tic-tac-toe.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

I was gifted this fun Mardi Gras fabric by Rene's sister Michelle. Rene' started the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild which I adore being a part of. She also got Michelle into quilting. I want to adopt both of them as sisters. They're both very talented quilters. I love seeing what they make.

I unearthed this fabric attempting to clean up my studio. Not sure I've shown it. I like having pictures of my fabric. It's fun to go back and see what I have in my stash.

Then he bought these little peppers and requested I stuff them. I used cream cheese, feta, sun dried tomatoes and herbs. He loves these peppers.

I used the leftover cheese mixture to stuff halved jalapenos. We have so many jalapenos on our bush, I'm running out of ways to use them. I wrapped these in bacon and roasted until the bacon was crispy. During the last few minutes of baking time, I swabbed them with apricot jam I loosened with a splash of vinegar. They were yummy. Even College Boy tried them. He's the jalapeno king around these parts. Roasting the peppers removes the heat. They're barely spicy after roasting. These are good on the grill too.

Tonight I'm grilling chicken thighs that have been in a tequila lime marinade. I hope I don't go up in flames. Looks like I'll be grilling in the rain. Happy Sunday!

Friday, September 7, 2012

I was thrilled to get my paws on this long coveted Moxie the Doxie pattern by Bad Skirt. I've followed Amy's blog for a long time and she makes the coolest stuff. To celebrate a million page views, she is graciously sharing her doxie pattern through September. Here's the dear pup in pieces. I must make a bunch of softies, because I'm almost through my second bag of fiber fill. That stuff makes me itch.

Meet Spot, the colorful dachshund. He'll have to live with an older kid because of the buttons. I thought he turned out pretty cute and the pattern walks you through each and every step. With pictures. My kind of pattern.

Someone forgot to buy lettuce at the market, so we've been eating a lot of tomato, avocado, radish, and fresh herb salads. I don't even bother with a dressing. Just a drizzle of balsamic, salt, and pepper. I picked up some lovely watercress yesterday, so we can go back to salads. Inspector Gadget is not a fan of watercress, but when I see a good bunch of it, I have to buy it.

Another quilt for AAQI. Our guild challenge for September was to make AAQI quilts. There were so many cute ones. You can see them right here. I never tire of making these little quilts. I'm looking forward to a rainy weekend with lots of cooking and sewing.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Fabric.com had some nice quilting fabrics for $3.95 a yard. I picked up a few things. Love those simple line drawings and funny kid sayings. I really need to start a black and white quilt. I think I've collected enough black and white prints by now.

I try to avoid sugar, but these two confections are sitting in my studio taunting me. Hey, at least I didn't make these Take Five Candy Bar Brownies by the Noble Pig. Those sound dangerous.

Speaking of taunting me, I made a vat of my mom's potato salad for the holiday weekend. I always have to ask her if she puts onions in her potato salad (she doesn't). There's no actual recipe but I know how she basically makes it. Mom would decorate would sliced hard boiled eggs and a gentle dusting of paprika versus me spilling a large amount of paprika.

The ladybug flimsy is finished. Yay! It's about 60" square. I just need to find and make a backing and get this baby to the long arm quilter. This was my first quilt top made from a kit. There was plenty of fabric leftover. Kits kind of worry me; I'm not the most accurate cutter. I was careful and ended up with plenty of leftover fabric.